Background
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was born at Hainichen, Saxony, Germany July 4, 1715, the son of a Saxon pastor.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was born at Hainichen, Saxony, Germany July 4, 1715, the son of a Saxon pastor.
After attending the famous school of St Afra in Meissen, Christian Fürchtegott Gellert entered Leipzig University in 1734 as a student of theology.
On completing his studies in 1739 Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was for two years a private tutor. Owing to shyness and weak health Gellert gave up all idea of entering the ministry, and, establishing himself in 1745 as privat docent in philosophy at the university of Leipzig, lectured on poetry, rhetoric and literary style with much success. Returning to Leipzig in 1741 he contributed to the Bremer Beitrage, a periodical founded by former disciples of Johann Christoph Gottsched, who had revolted from the pedantry of his school.
The esteem and veneration in which Gellert was held by the students, and indeed by persons in all classes of society, was unbounded, and yet due perhaps less to his unrivalled popularity as a lecturer and writer than to his personal character.
This is more particularly true of his Fabeln und Erzahlungen (1746 - 1748) and of his Geistliche Oden und Lieder (1757).
The fables, for which he took La Fontaine as his model, are simple and didactic.
The " spiritual songs, " though in force and dignity they cannot compare with the older church hymns, were received by Catholics and Protestants with equal favour.
Some of them were set to music by Beethoven.
Gellert wrote a few comedies: Die Betschwester (1745), Die kranke Frau (1748), Das Los in der Lotterie (1748), and Die zartlichen Schwestern (1748), the last of which was much admired.
His novel Die schwedische Grdfin von G. (1746), a weak imitation of Richardson's Pamela, is remarkable as being the first German attempt at a psychological novel.
Gellert's Briefe (letters) were regarded at the time as models of good style.
Christian Fürchtegott Gellert was the noblest and most amiable of men, generous, tender-hearted and of unaffected piety and humility.